Cuddle Cot Donation in memory of Luca

On June 13, 2018 I heard the doctors mutter the words "there is no heartbeat". I didn't think in a million years that it would ever happen to me. How could I lose a baby? I've had 2 other children and they were born with minimal complications. For some reason my brain refused to let me fully understand the words they were saying to me. It felt unreal until my son actually entered this world. In the back of my mind I was hoping they were wrong and he'd be alive. But he was born, still, and had no heartbeat. I felt like my heart tore into a million pieces. I never truly understood the meaning of that saying until that day. It literally felt like my heart was falling apart. To me he looked perfect and healthy, ten fingers, ten toes, tiny little nose, blue eyes. The doctors didnt have any answer for me as to what may have gone wrong except "sometimes this happens''. Although this answer is not good enough, it's just something I have to accept. My beautiful boy was gone.

Due to Luca being stillborn, Luca's dad and I only had a couple hours to spend with him before they took him away. Everything seemed so rushed, and honestly it was a blur. Grieving and trying to make arrangements isn't an easy task. The pain of leaving the hospital without your baby in your arms is an unimaginable pain that I don't wish upon anyone.

If you have ever gone through this terrible experience then you understand that it takes a couple hours for tests and funeral/burial/cremation arrangements. So the couple hours that you do have with your angel are completely taken over by those tasks.

Unfortunately this happens more often than we think. I never want parents to feel like they are rushed when it comes to spending time with their angels before they have to say goodbye. Honestly every day of my life I wish I had just a little more time with Luca.

In honor of my son on his birthday I would like to donate a Cuddle Cot to the hospital which he was born. For those not familiar, a Cuddle Cot is an in-room cooling unit that is the size of a small humidifier that is disguised inside a bassinet or Moses basket. This allows the parents to have an extra day or two with their baby. The Cuddle Cot gives the parents a chance to hold their baby, sing to them, bathe them, read to them, take pictures, and create keepsakes, but most of all, to give parents the gift of time. Although it's not as long as they would have wanted, it's time that they would not be able to have without a Cuddle Cot.

Please join us in raising money to donate a Cuddle Cot to Heritage Valley Beaver in loving memory of our son Luca Carmine Marchionda who would have been 3 years old.